Queer Love in the Time of Corona
by Sam Spadafore
Educator Sam reflects on finding a healthy and affirming relationship during the pandemic, and how his work as a consent educator, some challenging and deep self-work, and a little intentional screen-time helped get him there.
2020 was supposed to be my glow-up year. It was not supposed to be a year I spent almost entirely on my phone. Things started out well for me; I was actually going to the gym, I landed a job I felt confident in, and I was finally feeling ready to start dating again. Fast forward and now the gym feels like a hot zone, that job was probably the worst I’ve ever had plus I got fired, and it’s a health risk to even see people in person, let alone date them. I felt like my whole life was limited to my little blue screen and all I could do was mindlessly doom scroll, download and uninstall apps left and right, and try to find peace of mind while staying connected from afar. That said, 2020 was still kind of my glow-up year, and it had a lot to do with my phone.
By January 2020 it had been 2 years since my last long-term relationship. Meeting people out at bars was never my jam. I had flirted on a few dating apps and met a few folks, but I never figured out how to make any lasting connections in this digital space. Then, all of a sudden, dating apps were all I had.
I am a 24-year-old gay man, and as such equally a consumer of and a victim to The Apps™. I've been a consent educator with Speak About It for two years, which gives me both a specific lens and little tolerance for the less-than-clear communication that is often found on the Apps. I’m gay, but also trans and nonbinary, which makes the smorgasbord of dating apps feel more like a buffet with a 2 star review on Yelp. Nothing is quite appetizing or what I want. Tinder feels like it’s for the straight cis people, Grindr feels disingenuous, and you’d think Scruff would be popular given the hairy-lumberjack-LL-Bean-gay aesthetic of men in Maine, but it’s surprisingly sparse. And yet The Apps™ had me coming back for more because I (and most humans) crave connection, even though my online interactions felt insincere and I never really got that connection the apps promised. Nonetheless, I persevered! And deleted and redownloaded and deleted and redownloaded.
So, how did I find love in the time of COVID? I got on The Apps and I just messaged someone. But I didn’t message just any someone, I messaged another trans person.
My whole life I had dated cis men. There wasn’t anything particularly wrong with these relationships, but I wasn’t out to them as trans. And because I wasn’t out, I wasn’t in the queer relationship I knew I wanted. I was still presenting as a cis-heteronormative woman and it made my relationships feel inauthentic as well.
It took many years of therapy, self-realization, and hard work to learn to love myself in all my transness and to get comfortable setting higher standards for dating. I wanted— frankly, I needed—to date people who saw me as my true identity. Once I knew what I wanted, I stopped aimlessly scrolling, deleting, and redownloading, and I started messaging people first.
“I wanted— frankly, I needed—to date people who saw me as my true identity. Once I knew what I wanted, I stopped aimlessly scrolling, deleting, and redownloading, and I started messaging people first.”
I messaged this guy not really expecting much, but I saw that he was trans and that made me feel like he was approachable. I was considering a move out to Los Angeles, and asked him about the trans scene, if it felt welcoming and safe. We clicked, started flirting and sexting, and it was wonderful. Not just because our humor and our texting style were so in sync, but also because we’re both trans.
There’s something beautiful and powerful about having shared experience with someone who is outside the norm of cis-hetero society. It was nice not having to explain things about my body or about my transition. I loved having someone to commiserate with over testosterone shots and all the lovely puberty stuff that comes along with it. He already understood gender dysphoria and gender euphoria and all the language and labels that come along with that.
Not only did we share experience, but we talked radically about our wants, needs, desires, and boundaries. Our shared language offered us a plethora of potential connections that were built on common experience. We talked about what we liked to call our body parts and what makes us feel affirmed. As a consent educator, I know that affirmation is so important when deciding to get frisky with someone, and it felt so good to be authentically seen and respected.
Specifically for trans people, we may experience dysphoria from hearing our body parts called something typically associated with our gender assigned at birth. I’m much more turned on when I hear someone call it my dick rather than my vulva. With a trans partner, it was so much easier to bring this desire up in conversation. There was never a question of whether or not my partner was going to respect my desire or use it against me, he knew just as well how powerful words can be. This mutual respect: It’s consent culture at its finest. *chefs kiss*.
“We had nothing but communicating to do because all we could do was communicate. ”
At first, we didn’t really call it “dating” or use the word “boyfriend” to describe what we were doing: Facetime-ing every night and texting all day. But we went a month straight without ever missing a day. And wow, was this the best whatever you want to call it I’d ever been in! We had nothing but communicating to do because all we could do was communicate. If we wanted to see each other we had to talk about something and this made us more open and more vulnerable. We couldn’t fill our time with cuddling, kissing, or sex because of the distance we had to keep. This changed the game for us. We had “dates” where we ate a meal together over Facetime or chatted while we simultaneously played Sims4. We were devoted to checking in about how our days went, how we were feeling, and what we needed from the other person to feel good about our communication. We got to know each other so well that, when we finally did manage to see each other in person, we were immediately comfortable around one another.
This was my first relationship in a year and a half, and I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you I was still working through some bullshit. At the beginning of this relationship, I felt insecure and unworthy of this new person's love. I felt like I was damaged, I thought my trauma as a survivor from my last relationship would get in the way. I thought I was going to scare him off because I had all this baggage lying around. Even though I was actively working on cleaning it up, there was still luggage falling out of the closet labeled “fear of abandonment” and “disappointment.” As a consent educator, I felt imposter syndrome every time I couldn’t communicate with him about my insecurity or anxiety around our relationship. I felt the purest love without the cloudiness of sex getting in the way, and yet I couldn’t figure out why I was terrified to tell this person just that.
I realized that I was bogging myself down in self-judgement about the intensity of my feelings for someone I hadn’t yet met in person. What if, instead, I thought of our digital relationship as an advantage or relished in the resilience we had built over distance? So, I started to see our distance and our digital communication as the keys to working through my insecurities. I could take a step back, set my phone down, and work through what I needed without the pressure of this person being in my physical space. I had the time and the room to breathe and I could come to him when the time was right for me.
It’s time to demystify the digital relationship. The internet has been here for a minute now, I’ve lived with it almost my entire life. The stigma surrounding internet dating delegitimizes relationships that are built online and it has got to go. We must reframe how we look at intimacy and technology while also holding space for its limitations. There’s room for us to use technology for the benefit of connection and to enjoy the boundaries and space it provides to make our relationships stronger. I’m not going to sit here and say, "Actually, I loved that I couldn't touch my boyfriend for three months and wish it stayed online! It wasn't hard at all!” Yeah, it was so great to finally meet in person. But I cannot ignore the fact that without the technology this relationship wouldn’t have happened in the first place.
“The internet has been here for a minute now, I’ve lived with it almost my entire life. The stigma surrounding internet dating delegitimizes relationships that are built online and it has got to go. “
Plus, the sex has been incredible. I mean, probably the best I’ve ever had. And I’m telling you this not to brag… well, maybe a little brag… I’m finally having good sex! I never really had good sex when I was with cis men who only saw me as a woman. I couldn’t relax, I didn’t know how to ask for what I wanted, and it resulted in faked orgasms and sometimes even tears. Because I was able to share my true self with this person, I don’t feel pressure to act a certain way or pretend I’m enjoying something for their sake. I like to think that because I’m open with him, he can be open with me. Plus, being on testosterone together, it’s nice to have someone who gets what’s going on “down there” and how sensation changes. He has an understanding that what feels good for him is probably going to feel good for me too. (And he’s not wrong.) I won’t say that everything is perfect, but when there is a moment that doesn’t feel right we have built the skills to have a conversation and work through it. For me, that’s the sexiest part.
For anyone out there wondering if love is even possible in the time of COVID, I will say: yes, it is. I will not say that it is all going to be easy; I had to do a lot of work on myself, my relationship with dating, and my relationship with The Apps™. But I used the time and isolation of quarantine to my advantage. I did the hard work and figured out how to use the tools I had to make my relationship stronger. (aNd So CaN yOu!!!!) But actually, so can you. How I did it might not be ideal for everyone, but I can comfortably say that, if you use what you’ve got, some good things really can come from quarantine.
Sam Spadafore is a Speak About It educator, actor, and poet. You can find more of his work on his website, samspadaforeofficial.com.